The last kiss, last hug, last laugh, last smile. The last morning, last dinner, last fight. The last look in love.
Markers of the end of a love that’s flame has extinguished. Fleeting moments that fade away into the days, weeks, months and years following the separation, as if those times never existed at all. The lives that once tangled themselves together so tightly, the knots once seemed impossible to undo, are left frayed at the edges from the prying and pulling apart.
Yet, the break is never clean enough. The trace of the final kiss could still be tasted. The scars from that detrimental fight still burn. The sound of the last laugh rings in the back of one’s ear as it’s filled with a different laughter inspired by someone new.
There’s an Intimacy in Remembering.
These lasts will be replaced with new firsts, as their past lover is no longer around to experience them. The first time one succeeds at a goal. The first time they cry without their lover by their side. The first time they embrace true happiness without their partner.
An active choice is made to continue experiencing these firsts alone, as a new version of oneself beyond their ex-lover grows. To make that choice is necessary, to not fall back into a pattern that only ever ends the same way.
These firsts are laced with haunts of those lasts, knowing that life is moving on and the world is continuing to turn. The memory of what once was exists within the now, even through the choice.
The Last that Never Ends.
In the midst of the fleeting final moments and resurging first times, the choice to never speak again is the last that expands beyond the boundaries of endings and beginnings.
It’s the final thing old lovers do together, even if apart for the rest of their lives. It binds the two together forever, while also physically separating the people who no longer live for each other.
Relationships diminish. New ones bloom. Emotions go bad. Different ones are felt. Moments become memories, to be replaced with new moments. Love fades, yet the lovers are never truly parted, because they choose to never speak again.
Tag us on Instagram @VALLEYmag to share something with us you’d love to tell the person you’re choosing to never speak to again.
